Browsing Department of Marketing (MARKETING/AØ) by Title

Case analyses, product development and recommendations including the VIPER study

Lyck, Lise(Frederiksberg, 2012)

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Abstract:

In this publication SWOT-analyses of each attraction will be followed by an introduction of the history of the different case attractions in the AGORA 2.0 project. After the historic description of each attraction there will be a presentation of the context in which the attraction is situated. There will also be a description of the cliental that visits the attraction. In the last section of each attraction presentation there will be strategic recommendations for how to increase the number of visitors and how to develop a Baltic Sea Region, BSR, tourism product. Furthermore, the transnational products produced in the project will be presented together with the products that are in the pipeline. At the end, the VIPER study that was unfolded during the project period will be examined.
The purpose of the historic introduction is to create a platform for a Baltic common values and maybe identity in northern Europe, BSR. By developing this platform for each attraction it will be possible to link the different attractions to a common idea, period, person or time and through this create a common basis for developing transnational tourist attractions in the BSR. Linking the different attractions together will create an opportunity to take advantage of the heritage asset the BSR share but do not currently use for product development and marketing purposes.
The physical context, or key influences, of the attraction is the conditions and surroundings such as climate, geography, presence of large towns and airports and so forth. By providing a physical context of the attraction it will be possible to assess the opportunities of the attraction. By doing this, attractions with similar conditions can learn from each other on how to overcome difficulties and how to take advantage of partially or unused opportunities. This also creates an opportunity to continue future cooperation.
Two other important factors are language and culture. Language and culture often function as barriers to cooperation because the differences of understanding each other as well as where people come from easily can lead to misunderstandings and difficulties when trying to cooperate.

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In order to develop attractions to promote tourism and use of local nature and culture some in-struments can be useful to apply to achieve a successful development, but how to do it in practice is often the question. What is presented is a design for development. Realization requires in-volvement of decision makers and of economic resources outside the AGORA 2.0 project. In other words, what can be presented are design models for decision making.
This booklet is meant to be a help in this process. It is based on the principle “learning by doing” applied to product/service ideas and concepts which the participants in the workshops have elab-orated themselves. These examples have already been discussed and presented for the 22 AGORA 2.0 partners based on a draft version.
It is furthermore based on “Baltic transnational learning”, as a result of all participants coming from different Baltic countries and with a variety of ideas rooted in Baltic landscapes and tradi-tions. The knowledge sharing has taken place in workshops in the Baltic Sea Region countries.
The work packages in AGORA 2.0 include workshops and development of a network that can connect and link Baltic developers and AGORA 2.0 partners and thereby create a vivid Baltic cul-tural cooperation and development.

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A Consumer Neuroscience Study of Information Processing of Brand Advertisements and the Store Environment in Compulsive Buying

Bagdziunaite, Dalia(Frederiksberg, 2018)

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Abstract:

Background. Compulsive buying—defined as excessive, uncontrolled, and repetitive buying—
is a serious problem in today’s society, driven by consumeristic values and reinforced by
marketing efforts. However, the research on the external influences (e.g., brand information) and
underlying processes that explain consumer behavior in brand-manifesting situations in
compulsive buying is relatively scarce. This thesis provides an integrative literature review and
two experimental studies that yield cross-disciplinary insights into the compulsive buying
phenomenon. The thesis aims to study the cognitive, emotional, and behavioral responses that
characterize consumer-brand interactions at relevant brand touchpoints in compulsive buying.
Research methodology. Two experimental studies investigate similarities and differences
between two groups of consumers with high and low compulsive buying tendencies (CBTs) at
two brand touchpoints that represent a pre-purchase and purchase phase of the consumer
journey. Multimodal consumer neuroscience tools (i.e., eye-tracker, EEG, and EDA) are
employed to collect neurophysiological and physiological responses during exposure to
marketing information. The first study examines consumer information processing of
advertisements during a simulated TV commercial-viewing experiment. The second study
investigates consumer information processing of store environments during a field experiment
conducted in two single-brand fashion-apparel stores (i.e., low-end vs. high-end).
Findings. The findings from the first study indicate that, regardless of their CBT level,
consumers tend to allocate a relatively equal amount of cognitive resources to attend to, process,
and remember exposed advertising information during the entire duration of commercial
viewing. The two groups differed in their visual processing of brand elements only when
viewing advertisements related to social cause. In the consumer group with a high CBT, a higher
cognitive workload was linked to a lower probability of subsequent brand recognition. The
findings from the second study revealed that, regardless of the fashion-store type, consumers
with a high CBT chose items that were more expensive than consumers with a low CBT. The
changes in physiological arousal during the first minute of shopping showed that, although both
consumer groups were more emotionally responsive to the high-end than the low-end fashion store, the emotional receptivity in both groups was expressed in different physiological
responses. Specifically, consumers with a high CBT demonstrated a higher frequency and a
shorter duration of emotional responses, whereas consumers with a low CBT showed a higher
amplitude of emotional responses in the high-end fashion store than in the low-end fashion
store. The results indicate that there are two potentially different mechanisms that occur in the
two consumer groups during encounters with store information.
Conclusions. This thesis provides theoretical, methodological, managerial, and societal
contributions. This research highlights the fact that compulsive buying is a complex
phenomenon and that researchers should address both internal and external influences, examine
the unconscious processes and mechanisms, and study consumer responses to marketing
information in more naturalistic settings. The thesis also promotes the integration of consumer
neuroscience tools with the compulsive buying research practice, aims to increase the awareness
of the problem of compulsive buying, and encourages the development of novel, technologybased
and scientifically driven consumer-behavior-monitoring policies.

With the primary ambition to contribute to the brand orientation literature this thesis explores
relationships between corporate brand identities and the management of design innovation.
The thesis is based partly on a prolonged empirical case study of Bang & Olufsen and
partly on a multiple case study of small and medium sized design-oriented firms – all
characterised by a strategic focus on managing market-driving innovation.
Grounded in an interpretive analytical approach the thesis examines how corporate brand
identity as a strategic logic of the firm affects flows of management decisions and the
structuring of design innovation strategies and implementation hereof. The thesis’ theoretical
foundation is anchored in the competence-based view on firm competitiveness. This
foundation is complemented by institutional and organisational culture theories to the
purpose of uncovering how organisational decision-makers are affected by corporate brand
logics in relation to the management of design innovation processes and capabilities.
The thesis presents four papers, which contribute conceptually and empirically to advance
the brand orientation literature from a competence-based perspective focused on design and
innovation management. Overall, findings suggest that corporate brand identity as a
competitive logic in brand- and design-oriented firms can guide innovation strategy and
decisions for coordinating management processes and the use of resources to develop brandsupportive
innovation capabilities. However, it is also suggested that such brand logics
should be complemented by market logics in a dynamic interplay. In this way a more
pragmatic approach is achieved to the sustainment of innovation capabilities, which in an
integrative manner support firm corporate brand identity and market adaptability as
complementary management foci for customer value creation and sustained competitive
advantages.

In line with the concept of long-term relationships, as opposed to discrete exchanges, gaining
acceptance amongst marketing researchers (e.g. Wilson, 1995; Ganesan, 1994; and Dwyer et al.,
1987), the prevalent literature has increasingly emphasised the importance of cooperation between
companies.
As described in Selnes (1998), the objective of long-term relationships is to establish, maintain and
enhance relations with trading partners at a profit. It is a dynamic process, whose success depends
on the ability of companies to provide one another with episodes of value on a continuous basis.
Definable as, “...similar or complementary coordinated action taken by firms in interdependent
relationships to achieve mutual outcomes or singular outcomes with reciprocation over time”
(Anderson and Narus, 1990, p. 45), cooperation between companies is viewed as an important
foundation to the success of long-term relationships (Eriksson and Sharma, 2003). A joint effort
based on coordination of activities thus permits companies to attain outcomes of mutual value
otherwise not possible, e.g. exchange efficiency (Cannon and Perreault, 1999), decreased
environmental uncertainty (Buvik and Grønhaug, 2000), and management of dependencies (Stern
and El-Ansary, 1992)....

Challenging Customers not only responds to increasing demands among
customers challenging their suppliers but also to the suppliers’ drive to
challenge customers. Challenging each other in a customer-supplier
relationship helps both parties stay sharp, alert, and agile. Challenging in
relationships – and challenging the relationship itself – are therefore
sources of competitiveness for customers and suppliers alike.
A business without customers is not a business. All firms need to interact
with “the one who pays”, “the one for which they are valuable”, or “the
beneficiary of the firm’s value proposition”. Such customer contacts and
contracts can be direct or indirect, arm’s length or trust based, simple or
complex. In all cases, firms have relationships with customers. In our
understanding, the term “relationship” does not imply a specific quality,
such as “friendship” or even “good” or “bad”. Rather, it indicates that the
parties somehow relate to one another. “Customer-supplier relationship”
describes the fact that companies interact with each other in order to
enable value creation on both ends of the relationship.
The establishment of relationships is therefore not a choice for a
company, but a necessity. However, ensuring that the firm is involved in
suitable customer-supplier relationships that support its competitiveness is
a challenging task and a daily challenge. This book provides a 360-degree
view of customer-supplier relationships, and offers tools useful for
describing and understanding relationships in order to develop them into
valuable assets for the firm. Notably, the book is not a complete collection
of all of the models and tools ever suggested. Rather, it offers our
selection of tools that have been proven to work over time.

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The paper is concerned with the measurement of emotions and the study of the role of
emotions in consumer choice. Contemporary neurological findings suggest that emotions
may play a role in its own right, quite different from the way in which they have been
considered in traditional consumer choice behaviour theory. A large-scale study including
800 respondents, covering 64 brands, provide findings on emotional response tendencies
for the brands, and relate these to involvement, type of need gratification, purchasing
behaviour, etc.

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In the consumer behaviour literature several perspectives on consumer decision making have
been considered, including the ‘value perspective’, the ‘information processing perspective’,
the ‘emotional perspective’, and ‘cue utilization theory’. In this paper, a framework which
integrates several perspectives on consumer decision making and which hypothesizes possible
links between several basic constructs is developed. The framework is tested by the use of
two experimental designs. The results of this study support the complexity of consumer
decision making: (A) Consumers do not use their cognitive and affective skills independently,
rather they affect each other; (B) the cognitive, evaluative constructs of quality and attitude
had significant direct effects on buying intention in both experiments, whereas the affective
construct of emotion had no significant effects on buying intention in both experiments; (C)
price affected in both experiments perceived quality, which in turn affected attitude, which in
turn affected buying intention. At the same time, price had no direct effect on buying
intention.

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A rather new business trend concerns social responsible or ethical marketing. Instead of just selling products and brands it makes professional sense to “bundle” or associate the purchase of a product with some altruist activity. While the market share of ethical subcategories in most countries is still confined to a few percentages of the total market at best, it appears that the segment will grow during the next decade. The increased interest for sustainability is found within many western societies both within the business community, academic circles, the political system and among plain consumers. Up to now relatively few empirical studies have focused on the topic. The present study is based on a large scale panel study and uses the German coffee market for profiling the consumer of faire trade coffee and analyzes how this consumer differs from the mainstream consumer. Also, we explore why some consumers intend to buy fair trade coffee but do not purchase the product (and vice versa). Several interesting findings are revealed. Implications for promotion of fair trade coffee are discussed and suggestions for further research are addressed.

This paper tests the ability of two consumer theories - the theory of reasoned action and the theory of planned behavior - in predicting consumer online grocery buying intention. In addition, a comparison of the two theories is conducted. Data were collected from two web-based surveys of Danish (n=1222) and Swedish (n=1038) consumers using self-administered questionnaires. Lisrel results suggest that the theory of planned behavior (with the inclusion of a path from subjective norm to attitude) provides the best fit to the data and explains the highest proportion of variation in online grocery buying intention. Keywords Online buying intention – groceries - theory of reasoned action – theory of planned behavior – lisrel

Most studies in marketing operate at a market level, which also becomes frequently the condition
for design work. This means that the aggregate or weighted average consumer is the focus. Having
already made this aggregation as the “top-down approach” indicates, it is not feasible to take the
individuals apart and explore how they differ individually. This is so because already the concepts
and the methodology are founded at the aggregate level. The differences have been eliminated and
replaced by an assumed normal distribution or similar. We depart from that and start our
investigations at an individual level. This means, in the “bottom up” approach we keep the
individual variation or differences intact for further analysis. We base our concept and methodology
at the individual level. Only then, understanding what happens for the single individual we can
eventually aggregate to see the consequences at a market level. We explore a procedure that enables
the marketer to estimate the effect of a marketing message like a mission statement in a logo at the
level of a single individual. This is a prior to market test, with its own realism. The procedure can
easily be extended to products, where both quality and price (willingness to pay) are issues and it
can also be used as a follow-up after the round of pre-test.
To satisfy individual users, real individuals should be considered in their heterogeneity. Relevant
psychological and statistical methods and reasoning are useful in keeping the trace of the individual.
In the bottom up approach we measure how much the influence of a treatment like that of facing a
particular design influences each human being. Successively, one may see if other behavioural
characteristics also unite for instance those who are heavily affected or those who are not. Then a
new behavioural based community may appear.

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In this paper, we suggest that many of the choice situations confronting consumers in the modern marketplace have become supra-complex. Supra-complex decision-making occurs when the perceived difficulty of transforming product information into knowledge exceeds the expected benefits of doing so, even if decision-making heuristics, or other kind of attribute-related decision rules, are applied. Under conditions of supra-complexity, we propose that consumers instead use mental markers in order to justify their decisions. Mental markers are any mental construct the consumer uses for the purpose of gaining mental justification of overall choices. We argue that the usage of mental markers leads to reductions in cognitive dissonance, reduced usage of mental resources and time. Drawing on the principle of mental justification as well as consumers’ propensity to use goals as blueprints for directing their behaviour, we propose a framework for understanding consumer decisions when faced with supra-complexity.

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This thesis discusses customers’ engagement behaviors (CEB) in the context of
continuous service relationships (telecommunication provider and financial services’
provider). CEB manifestations are agreed in literature and in business to be a potential source
of value for the firm and valuable contributions have been made, mainly focusing at
antecedents for CEB, the various CEB behaviors and consequences of CEB. Extant literature
adopts mainly a firm-centric perspective and tends to be conceptual.
This research adopts a customer-centric perspective. The methodology is qualitative and
is performed via semi-structured in-depth interviews with individuals resulting in 40 touchpoint
histories about their service relationships with their telecommunication provider and
financial services provider. Furthermore, are qualitative data collected at the
telecommunication firm, in terms of interviews with employees and participant observations
at touch-points.
CEB are definitely found to be potential sources for value-creation for the firm. CEB can
however at times destroy value or cause lost CEB value (when CEB initiatives by the firm are
not returned).
From the perspective of customers are CEB manifestations part of their everyday Life.
Customers manifest CEB to obtain a certain goal, sometimes targeted the firm, and sometimes
targeted a group external to the firm. Customers manifest CEB by adopting a certain
interaction style to facilitate goal achievement, and the way customers manifest CEB are
sometimes inconsistent and follows not necessarily pre-figured sequences.
Customers’ CEB manifestations co-exist with the experiences customers have in their
service relationships. CEB is sometimes manifested by customers to re-experience, reinforce
or challenge what the customer is currently / has been experiencing. CEB is as well
sometimes embedded in the service relationship to a degree, where customers’ experiences
and CEB become deeply intertwined or even become one and same construct, and sometimes
is a CEB manifestation a consequence of a certain customer experience.
CEB has changed the service relationship, and some of the recognized cornerstones in
what constitutes a service relationship are challenged. This thesis suggests that CEB manifestations
turn the service relationship into a plethora of (service) events of sometimes conflicting
valence, which might disrupt the value creation process intended by the firm. This might be
the reality of ‘the new service relationship’.
These obvious managerial challenges are best solved by the firm, when the firm adopts a
customer-centric approach and understands which situation(s) their customers are most
frequently in (revolving around the firm). The firm should investigate which touch-points are
relevant contingent the customer situation and finally how the touch-points could be best
possible organized to stimulate for favorable CEB. This novel managerial concept is labeled
‘customer arenas’.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine how essential dimensions of customer experience management (CEM) drive business performance in Danish companies.
Methodology/approach – An empirical study is conducted to investigate the relationships between seven CEM dimensions, differentiation, market performance and financial performance. The conceptual model is operationalized by a structural equation model, and the model is estimated and tested by using the partial least squares method. A survey among 484 companies in Denmark forms the empirical basis for the study.
Findings – The findings provide evidence that the seven CEM dimensions influence financial performance. The high performing companies differentiate significantly from the low performing companies with regard to how they master CEM. All seven CEM dimensions are essential in producing differentiation, market performance and financial performance.
Research limitations – This study is limited to the seven identified CEM dimensions in Danish companies.
Practical implications – This study has clear implications in terms of identifying and measuring the importance of essential CEM dimensions which influence business performance. The results can help companies to understand CEM and develop CEM strategies.
Originality/value – The paper provides a deeper insight into CEM and how CEM works.